How Mentoring Can Enhance Employability Skills

Mentoring offers a wealth of benefits. One of the major advantages of mentoring is that it can contribute towards enhancing the employability skills of both parties.

Benefits for Mentees

A mentee is usually at a more formative stage of their career and maybe in need of encouragement. The encouragement from a mentor can help with improving self-confidence and self-belief.

Problem solving ability is a muscle that needs to be flexed regularly and this is best done when receiving direct feedback. The mentor and mentee can look together at whether a more direct path to a solution could have been taken, and this helps the mentee improve their performance on the next occasion.

A mentor will also be experienced in the very career field in which the mentee wishes to progress so therefore they can offer direct professional development.

It should be remembered that the mentor’s role is to provide a non-judgemental backdrop against which the mentee can reflect on their performance. Any criticism will be constructive and will help the mentee evolve professionally.

Benefits for Mentors

Mentoring is a rewarding experience and can lead to better job satisfaction as it provides an opportunity for mentors to reflect on their own performance.

Some areas of a mentor’s experience may not be used regularly within their role. However, mentoring provides the opportunity to share the breadth of their experience and to make it available to others.

Mentoring can also improve interpersonal skills as well as employability. Improving employability comes down to always advancing professional development. Miranda Kennett in a recent article for Management Today 1 stressed the importance of taking responsibility for your own development and one of the ways she suggests doing this is by finding a mentor or by becoming one.